I have with me a tome from the Castellan of Harmonite Hall – the very subledger recording the expenses of the Botanist Royale for the Year of the Final Feast. As you scour the columns and tallies filling the ledger, you will notice an important entry two seasons prior to the final feast. The Botanist, at great expense, had imported from the Atar, six dozen Califian Heartblossom bushes. The extravagant blooms of this plant would have occurred at precisely the time of the Feast. And yet not one of the contemporary accounts mentions the Heartblossoms in their descriptions of the gardens of Harmonite Hall.

For which one must question Why? The answer is of course obvious from our vantage point. The petals had all been stripped for use in the evenings confection, misleadingly called Rosepetal Triffle.

The well known aphrodisiac effects of the Heartblossom petals are clearly the basis for the evening's debauchery. And combined with The Oysters Imperiale and Aniseseed Cordials that had been served a mere two and three courses earlier , it clearly indicates that someone other than either Brisband or Finn had planned for an evening of titillating affairs.